Interior design is all about layering and mixing things you love—colors, patterns, furniture, and decor pieces—in a cohesive way and if done well, it will draw you into the space. As one of the most multifunctional spaces in your home (a spot for friends and family to gather, a place to relax, etc.), the living room should be designed to draw you in. Our best design tips for decorating your living room can help make that happen!
When you’re finished reading these interior design tips, don’t forget to check out our Best Tips to Decorate Your Bathroom and 7 Best Tips to Decorate Your Bedroom to pull your whole house together.
Be mindful of the use of space.
Before you get started, think about what you’d like to use your living room for—Entertaining? Lounging? Define its functionality. Then you can start to think about what type of furniture you need to make that happen.
In the picture above, we needed to create a place for the whole family to hang out, so a large sectional sofa was the perfect choice. But with a three-piece chaise sectional like this, there was very little space left for a coffee table. We paired the sofa with a round coffee table, so the family is not bumping into corners as they walk around it. We also took note of the furry family member and opted for carpet tiles that can be easily replaced if the dog ruins any of them instead of replacing a large area rug.
Decorate for comfort.
Our next interior design tip for decorating your living room is this: decorate in a way that feels comfortable to you! At the end of the day, you want to come home to a space that feels good to you, not just what is popular or trendy. The colors and the design style you choose set the mood for your living room, and the furniture you pick determines your physical level of comfort. For this living room, we intentionally picked chairs that not only look great and set a nice casual vibe, but that also feel wonderful to sink into at the end of the day.
Design around the fireplace.
Brace yourself, we have some surprising news: the living room furniture does not always have to point toward a TV... You might find that your living room can be all the more relaxing without one. For the living room space shown above, we made the fireplace instead of the TV our focal point. We hung beautiful artwork above it and incorporated an amazing ottoman coffee table (found at a consignment store) to pull out the darker blues in the artwork and bring in just the right amount of pattern into an otherwise simple space. We also added some classy barrel swivel chairs to give our clients a cozy conversational place to hang out around the fireplace that could also be turned to watch TV when desired.
Get creative with your storage spaces.
One way to make your home look more spacious and sophisticated is to get creative with your storage spaces. For example, we absolutely love the way this custom floating cabinet turned out in our client’s living room! We felt it was the perfect modern touch to contrast with more traditional trim throughout the home. Here are a few other furniture pieces to consider selecting for additional storage space:
Multi-use bench with drawers or a seat that opens up
A storage ottoman for extra blankets or pillows
A coffee table with storage below for reading material or otherwise
An end table with a drawer for remotes or pens, etc.
Mix up and balance your finishes.
A great way to make your home feel like it came straight out of a magazine is to decorate with a mix of finishes. Hold on, hold on—before you start mixing and matching furniture with abandon (which we do recommend over purchasing a matching set of furniture), consider the balance of the finishes around the space. For example, if you introduce a light wood like the dining table in the room above, use that finish again somewhere across the room like we did in the TV console doors. You can’t see it in the photo, but our client has a white console with a black top in their entryway, so we balanced that with the white frame of the TV console. We also added touches of black with the dark coffee table and the dining chairs to balance the black of the TV and the dark wood on the floors.
Make bold statements.
The living room is a great place to make a bold design statement and there are so many ways you can do this!
Take our first photo for example. High contrast of the black brick fireplace in this beautiful white living room makes a bold modern statement which is softened by some pretty muted blues and punctuated with modern angular art.
Here we chose to hang very bold artwork and opted for a bold blue velvet sofa to match.
If you’re looking to make a statement without going too bold, try giving your living room a little pizzazz by painting an accent wall. Here we chose to paint the back of the bookshelves to match the fireplace tile. Then we tied the rug in by adding some custom pillows that pull all the colors together. Which brings us to our next tip…
Use pillows to tie in other decor elements.
Pillows have another important function beyond comfort. Throw pillows can be used to tie other decor elements (like paintings and photographs) in your living room together. Incorporating throw pillows is one of the easiest ways to add style to your living room and can make a dramatic difference in creating a cohesive and complete look. Pro tip: let your throw pillows have their own personality, but make sure to coordinate the colors in the pillows with the colors around the room and vary the scale in the patterns you use. Here we used a large striped mused with a solid as well as a small block print blue pillow.
Complete the look with accessories.
It’s amazing how adding accessories can make your living room feel complete. Here’s a snippet of a family room where we layered the coffee table with a tray, box to hide remotes, books and a few decorative objects that tied together the natural finishes and golden shimmer, all in the same spot. We topped it off with a little greenery to bring the home to life!
At Viève Interiors, it is our mission to help homeowners love where they live because happy homes are the most beautiful homes! If you need help creating a living room that you absolutely love to come home to, contact us!
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